The disclosed embodiments relate to gaming cabinet features of gaming machines which are configured to present one or more games, such as wagering or casino-style games.
Many styles of gaming machines and games are known, including casual (or non-wagering) gaming and wager-based gaming. Such gaming machines have many parts which require periodic service. For example, casino-style gaming machines are tightly regulated and are secured to prevent tampering, such as having various locks and service switches that allow access to an inside of a cabinet of the gaming machine and that activate various features of a gaming machine. Service of such locks and switches has typically involved removal of one or more parts of the gaming cabinet in order to access, service, and/or change them.
For example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,688,964 describes a slant-top gaming machine having a first lock (98) for a top panel sub-door (92), a second lock (48) for a front panel (38), and at least one reset switch (130). These switches and locks are all located in different positions, thus requiring the technician to separately access them for service. In addition, at least in the case of the reset switch (130) which is located behind a front panel (38), there is no convenient access to the switch, such as for service. In these situations, the technician may be required to remove other gaming machine components (electronic features or otherwise), panels and the like, to access each switch and lock. This process can be tedious, may result in lost parts, and may otherwise damage the gaming machine during the servicing process, particularly given that in some cases casino technicians are much less familiar with the machines and their servicing than the original manufacturer. Thus, it is desirable to provide an improved mounting and access configuration for such component, such as to improve the gaming machine assembly process and to facilitate maintenance of the machine in the field.
Other parts of a gaming machine may similarly suffer from complexity during installation and service. For example, speakers such as subwoofers require complex mounting hardware including multiple fasteners and the like. As one example, a subwoofer may be mounted to a gaming machine by passing multiple threaded fasteners through mounting flanges into a panel of the gaming machine. During servicing, however, a technician must remove all those fasteners and keep track of them for re-assembly. Often, however, the technician may lose one or more of the fasteners. Also, the fasteners are often very costly, increasing the cost of adding the subwoofer feature to the gaming machine.
Another problem with existing mounting configurations for features like subwoofers is that they often interfere with the placement of other features of the gaming machine, or those other features make it difficult to access and service the subwoofer. For example, if the subwoofer is mounted directly to a bottom of the gaming machine cabinet, various cables and other features of the gaming machine may be placed along the sides of the subwoofer and thus over the mounting flanges, making it very difficult to even access the mounting fasteners. This may thus require the cabling or other features to be re-routed to other areas of the interior of the gaming machine, which can be difficult given the constrained space therein. Accordingly, there is a need for an improved gaming cabinet allowing for easy maintenance and installation of internal components such as a subwoofer.